Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Facebook

During my time in Peace Corps, my thoughts have often wandered to the past; not my past, but the past of Peace Corps. What were the first years like for those young trailblazers? Obviously electricity and running water were not guaranteed components, and living conditions on a whole would have been austere, but what about relationships with the nationals they meet?

In one of the last blogs I wrote, I said that saying goodbye was made easier by knowing that my friends at site are just a quick e-mail away...and I'm not even out of the country yet and have talked to some of my students more on the Internet than I have in the past 3 weeks. Facebook, it changes everything. While living at site, I didn't accept my students as friends on the social network because I didnt' think that would be the wisest thing, but now that I'm done teaching, I addressed the 300 friend requests that had accumulated through my time at site. EEKS, sooo many! Some I didn't know, I think the wow factor of seeing a foreigner prompts people I don't know to request. I'd like to think it's because I'm just SO cool...but nah, I know better.

So now I leave the Philippines tomorrow, with lots of new friends, and glad that leaving doesn't mean waiting months for a postal reply as it would have in the past.